This is Andrew here, when I visited a Shinto temple for a spring ritual earlier this year, I got to see some of this kind of precision and attention to detail first hand.

"Almost every winter, after Lake Suwa in the Japanese Alps freezes, the male Shinto god Takeminakata crosses the ice to visit the female god Yasakatome at her shrine, causing a ridge known as the omiwatari to form. At least, that’s what the priests living on the shores of the lake believed.

The priests kept records of the event beginning in 1443, inadvertently creating a massive data set of climate conditions, helping researchers to understand the effects of climate change."

How many of you have played these games? It's surprising how much ancient folklore can find its way into things like video games. The article writer wasn't sure about why Amaterasu was represented as a white wolf, I happen to know why. This isn't artistic whim, or happenstance either!

Amaterasu can be considered an Ō-Kami, a "greater" or "great" kami spirit (大神, great kami spirit). She is basically a god. But the word happens to be pronounced the same way as "ōkami" which means wolf (狼). Hence a great spirit being represented as a wolf. It, like many things in Japanese culture and folklore started with a pun!

Ōkami happens to be one of my favorite games! I have played it to near completion (those nurikabe are the only things in my way)!

I'm not sure how many of you have been following the Katanas & Trenchcoats KS, but they're doing a neat thing called The Metagame where they've been unlocking pieces of the project in response to non-monetary stuff like fanfic, fan art, etc.

One of the things recently unlocked is a custom build of Fate themed for the game, which means I'm officially on this project now.

I'm pretty excited about this one, honestly—being K&T, we have an opportunity to get away with altering and/or killing our own sacred cows in a way that wouldn't really be appropriate in any other venue. Game currencies, aspect structure, what characters even are, those weird dice... we can mess with anything we want.

We just posted our monthly Kickstarter update for April. We touch on our presence at an upcoming convention, survey questions, book progress updates, and previews of some backer inspired content. Make sure to give it a look!

This article was posted in 2014 but I only just had the pleasure of reading it. Tofugu is a great site for Japanophiles, and has many fascinating articles on the culture, society, and folklore of Japan. Check it out!